About KSP2 on Steam (split from another thread)

[Scarecrow71]

[snip]

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

If they didn't cared at all, no one would had fixed Forum neither and would had already pulled the plug.

Wrong on 2 counts here.  First, the forum hasn't been fixed; I've been getting 503's all day, including trying to respond to this thread.  Secondly, the license has the forum extended until...well, I'm guessing March, based on when we were told it was extended for 6 months.

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

One can only speculate about the reasons the new owner choose not do show themself yet - you can't affirm what they care or not.

Well, you've done a bang-up job consistently affirming what you think they are doing and why.  Are you the only one allowed to do that? 

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

If we had 500USD and give 30% to Steam, we have 350USD in our pockets now. If 2 people ask for refund, at 50USD each, we will end with 250USD in our wallet (I'm assuming VALVe will keep their share on the sales).

I've stated repeatedly that we don't know who the new owner is nor what they intend to do.  Anything beyond that is your own speculation of what you think my words mean.

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

I think your apparent <self-snipped> annoyance about this subject may be hindering your <self-sniped>.

Nice.  Edit something you said personally to avoid the wrath of the mods.  I'm not annoyed.  You happen to think I am because I'm not drinking from the same mug of copium you are.  I'm being entirely realistic about what has happened, and what the actual facts are.  You, on the other hand, are dealing in conjecture and speculation as to what you think the new owner is/is not.

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

If we had 500USD and give 30% to Steam, we have 350USD in our pockets now. If 2 people ask for refund, at 50USD each, we will end with 250USD in our wallet (I'm assuming VALVe will keep their share on the sales).

Oh, I see what you are getting at now.  Not that you ever clarified or stated it as such in your original post.  But yes, based on your math there, the generated net revenue would be $250.  However, if you think that's enough money for the new owner to say "You know what, I think we'll keep getting that easy $250 a month and keep the bad vibes on the product going"...well, you just keep thinking that.  I highly disagree, but that's my opinion.

[snip]

5 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

If 3 people out of 4 don't mod (and again, it's actually less than that implied 25%) , then the game isn't selling its numbers because people buy it to mod it.

To add to your argument, when I first got KSP I had no idea that it could be modded.  I bought it for what it was, not what the community modded it to be.

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

So it's a key selling point

Except that companies don't market to the niche portion of their market (and that is saying something pretty strong considering that KSP is in and of itself a niche market).  KSP wasn't originally developed to be marketed to people who wanted to create or use mods.  And if only 25% of your client base wants that functionality, why would you look at the 75% and tell them that the 25% is more important?

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

People that don't care about a feature will not leave you if you add it

Patently wrong.  Happens all the time in businesses.  Look at all the petitions that have ever been created over products going in a direction or adding features that the majority of the client base/market didn't want.  Just look at the gaming industry.  You can read the following article that talks directly about this:

Controversial Features Games Immediately Regretted

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

You are blatantly failing to see that 75% of the current buyers would had bought the game no matter it having modding support or not,

And you are blatantly failing to see that companies don't market to the lowest portion of their customer base.  Are mods great?  Yes, they are.  But based on the (in the context of this conversation) 25% of the market wanting it, you don't spit in the face of the 75% and say "Too bad".

 

Edited December 28, 2024 by Vanamonde

[Lisias]

[snip]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Wrong on 2 counts here.  First, the forum hasn't been fixed; I've been getting 503's all day, including trying to respond to this thread. 

Not exactly, it was proved that Forum, the software and database, are working fine. The 502 and 503 problems are almost surely related to something between Forum's servers and CloudFlare.

The analysis of the errors pattern strongly suggests something in the middle has a outbound traffic quota - and if there's a quota, there's someone paying for it. The logical conclusion is that someone shrunk the Forum's budget to a level they considered comfortable for them, but it ended up being insufficient for the current Forum's demand.

So, yeah. Someone care enough to pay for that quota and for renewing the Forum's software license. But, at the same time, they don't value us enough to pay for more outbound traffic (what surprised me, as it's my understanding that this is cheaper than a database hosting), hinting that they may be evaluating the cost/benefit of this solution.

I'm afraid we are not giving them good reasons to raise such budget.

That said, I had asked the moderators to kindly move our conversation to a new topic so we stop derailing this one. I didn't create a new one right now because this would not solve the already existent posts, so may I suggest we give this thread some time so a moderator could give a look on my request?

If the request is denied, I strongly suggest we voluntarily move our conversation to a new thread in a day or two, where we can bash our sorry arses without derailing this one.

Edited December 28, 2024 by Vanamonde
Better phrasing.

[Vanamonde]

A number of personal remarks have been removed. Please keep it polite. 

[Fizzlebop Smith]

What worried me most about delisting is another potential media moment further impacting negative publicity and internet outrage. 

The crap show I anticipate from delisting would be a potential forum casualty.

I think it could allow legal action on the purchaser due to consequences not fully disclosed. I have seen acquisitions where limited liability regarding brand was transfered.

I don't know how extended warranties work for digital products. Most games do nit make it out of EA. 

Pretty sure most of our frustrations lie outside the "oh it didn't make it" but whether it ever stood a chance.

Just in case anyone wants to express personal displeasure about flagrant abuse of extended Early Access windows (I'm not talking the game that takes 10 years but finishes with a happy community)

https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact?contact-person=Gabe Newell

Or if you prefer snail mail

Attn Gabe Newell

10400 NE 4th St floor 14, Bellevue, WA 98004, United States

[PDCWolf]

18 hours ago, Lisias said:

Oh, dear... here we go again.

Fair enough, let's then ignore the point that Steam has the authority to remove games (sadly my other source is adults-only and a no-no to link, but those are "easy to understand" why they were removed). 

We'd require PD under the new owner to voluntarily come out and pull the plug themselves. Either way, the game is still in a limbo where it is clearly abandoned (won't reach 1.0) but also not cancelled (still listed for sale), and it should not be there.

As for moddability as a marketing tool and used to draw purchases, on the Steam page there's a single mention of it, at the end, right above the system reqs:

Try out the many mods created by the Kerbal Space Program community!

Which funnily enough could be confused with the steam workshop support, only used for sharing craft files. Mods are not why the game sold, mods are probably why less than a quarter of the sales were made, which is still a misnomer, as most people probably played stock first before modding it. Sorry but you're just wrong about this one man.

CKAN lists only 120.000 downloads, and that probably includes repeats from people reinstalling. Sadly Mechjeb doesn't directly list download numbers, but even if we say only 1 in 5 downloads CKAN versus just shoving MechJeb into the GameData folder, and then somehow double that number to include the people who download all other mods BUT mechjeb... yeah, the more realistic number of modders is closer to  being under 20%

Now again, I believe this is a "line in the sand" problem. For you there's clearly a number of people that make modding a "key selling point", meaning there's people out there who've only bought KSP1 because it is moddable. However even those people should've had to liked the base game anyways, as you don't buy a moddable game just because you can mod it. Starfield is as moddable as any other bethesda game, but it is boring, uninteresting garbage after a couple hours, not even worth the trouble to mod as modders clearly have shown.

[Lisias]

On 12/27/2024 at 1:35 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Yes, but they do not have the right to purchase something unethical or illegal.

Yes, they have the right to buy an unethical (from your point of view) product; no one have the right to buy illegal products; and that's all.

There's a huge difference between being unethical and illegal.

Quote

5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law.

Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789

Emphasis are mine. And I will (re)emphasize: by law, and not by your (neither mine) sense of ethics.

People have the right to like and buy crappy games. Me included (and, in fact, I had bought some and liked some of them, besides being crappy).

 

On 12/28/2024 at 9:47 AM, PDCWolf said:

I don't know what kind of line in the sand you must be drawing to somehow reach the conclusion that a minority of buyers decide the key selling point of the game. That's just not how it works, period.

Common sense. Your user base is not made of a homogeneous mass of people that like exactly the same thing.

Your user base is made of completely different people, with sometimes antagonistic and/or plain mutually exclusive goals and desires, and you want money from all of them.

You alienate 5% of your user base now, you lose 5% of your revenue. How many years did your company need to increase their net profit by 5%?

Spoiler

Quote

Corporate profits in the United States fell by 0.4% from the previous period to $3.128.5 trillion in the third quarter of 2024, compared to the preliminary estimate of no change and following a 3.5% rise in the previous period.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-profits

Once your competition catches up on things that every user wants, you need to capitalize on the things your competition can't provide them, what invariably will mean pleasing many of your minorities - otherwise you will be dragged into a race to the bottom (i.e., you will have to rely only on price as persuasion device).

Product Management 101 (again): you need to manage the expectations (and avoid the rejections) of 100% of your user base if you want money from 100% of the user base. If you have no choice but to wave some of them, you need to carefully measure the consequences on the long run to see if it will worth any gain you would have on the short one.

THIS IS EXACTLY HOW IT WORKS. Check the current game industry and tell me who are surviving, who are dying, and what they did to end where they ended.

 

On 12/28/2024 at 5:57 AM, PDCWolf said:

You're not better than a very basic statistics analysis. I gave it to you that anyone ever registered to the subreddit and the forum is someone who mods (which is not the case, it's a bias to your side of the argument). And even then that's <25% of the purchaser base.

I do not need to be "better", there's a reason we pay professional statisticians on a Company. All I need are skills to use the knowledge I have to do minimally viable estimations about the reality to be able to filter out what's possible and what's plain impossible, and then I hire a professional statistician to double check and properly ground anything that I don't rule out as obviously impossible.

Project Management 101: you don't make the data you use for taking decisions, you hire competent people to provide such data to you - while doing good enough estimations in the mean time.

I will decline to comment anything about any perceivable skills of yours.

 

On 12/29/2024 at 5:27 AM, PDCWolf said:

Fair enough, let's then ignore the point that Steam has the authority to remove games (sadly my other source is adults-only and a no-no to link, but those are "easy to understand" why they were removed).

Dude, anyone carrying a gun have the "authority" to shoot anyone in the streets. What they don't have is the RIGHT to do such.

Authority is not the same as Right.

Quote

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

au·thor·i·ty

/əˈTHôrədē/

noun: authority; plural noun: authorities

1. the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. "he had absolute authority over his subordinates"

2. a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere. "the health authorities"

Having power is not the same as being rightful. Do know the term "Authoritarian Rulers"?

Yes, Steam have the "authority" to do whatever they want on their Store. But they can't wave the consequences. The only, the very single example you gave in which they, indeed, forced their hand over a game developer plain screams censorship and authoritarianism.

"no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law". You find a law forbidding bad games from being published, and I will reevaluate my position. Until there, I will scream censorship and authoritarianism on anything that smells like - as the proposal under discussion.

 

On 12/29/2024 at 5:27 AM, PDCWolf said:

Now again, I believe this is a "line in the sand" problem. For you there's clearly a number of people that make modding a "key selling point", meaning there's people out there who've only bought KSP1 because it is moddable.

No. A key selling point is something being openly and clearly used to attract customers to your shop/product.

It's blatantly clear that modding was a selling key point to KSP2, as they were advertised (surprise! ) on the same line as... Multiplayer!

And I will quote me (again):

On 12/28/2024 at 9:25 AM, Lisias said:

And, in time:

Quote

Multiplayer/Modding: The technological developments made to the foundations of Kerbal Space Program 2 will build on the beloved modding capabilities of the original game, as well as deliver on the long-requested addition of multiplayer. Soon players will be able to share the challenges of deep space exploration. More details on these features will be revealed at a later time.

https://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com/games-kerbal-space-program-2

 

Reviewing my posts, I didn't found one of mine talking about it being "the selling point" (this phrase is from you, not me). [edit: found it. Fixed it. So, yeah, I'm the one that commited the mistake - why Firefox didn't caught it with the Alt+F command, it's a mystery to me] However, giving how things had became hot around here, it's not impossible that I had said it myself, and the phrase got snipped by being embedded on some non forum compliant sentence of mine. If at any moment I wrote "the selling point", instead of "a selling point", then it was a mistake that I hope can be corrected now.

 

On 12/28/2024 at 12:26 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

On 12/28/2024 at 10:13 AM, Lisias said:

People that don't care about a feature will not leave you if you add it, but people that rejects it surely will.

Patently wrong.  Happens all the time in businesses.  Look at all the petitions that have ever been created over products going in a direction or adding features that the majority of the client base/market didn't want.  Just look at the gaming industry.  You can read the following article that talks directly about this:

Controversial Features Games Immediately Regretted

(sigh)

Quote

I don't care

Indicates that the speaker has no interest or emotional investment in the topic at hand.

Source.

People don't leave you by things they don't care. The link you posted clearly demonstrates exactly that, and not what you said. People cared about that subjects, and abandoned the games because the developer failed to take care of things the users cared about!!!

[snip]

Edited December 30, 2024 by Vanamonde
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining...

[PDCWolf]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

No. A key selling point is something being openly and clearly used to attract customers to your shop/product.

It's blatantly clear that modding was a selling key point to KSP2, as they were advertised (surprise! ) on the same line as... Multiplayer!

I will say, there's no mention of modding on KSP2s store page. The mention of multiplayer is in their "Why Early Access" blurb, which is non commercially binding. If anything rather than a selling point it was more butter to the bread of trying to rope us in.

As far as real moddability built into the game... let's just leave that discussion as having to use bepinex, which is cancer.

[Lisias]

22 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

I will say, there's no mention of modding on KSP2s store page. The mention of multiplayer is in their "Why Early Access" blurb, which is non commercially binding. If anything rather than a selling point it was more butter to the bread of trying to rope us in.

In Europe, it is. It's the reason I said before that a class auction may be possible on EU.

 

22 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

As far as real moddability built into the game... let's just leave that discussion as having to use bepinex, which is cancer.

Agreed.

That said, a nerved was touched here:

On 12/29/2024 at 12:04 PM, Lisias said:

Reviewing my posts, I didn't found one of mine talking about it being "the selling point" (this phrase is from you, not me). [edit: found it. Fixed it. So, yeah, I'm the one that commited the mistake - why Firefox didn't caught it with the Alt+F command, it's a mystery to me] However, giving how things had became hot around here, it's not impossible that I had said it myself, and the phrase got snipped by being embedded on some non forum compliant sentence of mine. If at any moment I wrote "the selling point", instead of "a selling point", then it was a mistake that I hope can be corrected now.

I have a very harsh antipathy (the word we use in PT-BR is "Ojeriza") to anything remotely resembling a fallacy - even from myself (what, when happens, I guarantee you is involuntary).

Since I'm pretty sure that a good part of your counter-arguing was based on my initial statement "the key selling point" (emphasis on "the"), I'm on the faulty party on this specific subject.

Plain saying "apologies" is cheap. So the very least I could do is to scrutinize my arguments the very same way I do on yours.

I had said that Steam would not unilaterally delist a game without some very persuasive external... "persuasion". I was wondering how I would further ground my thesis. And then I found this:

https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-steam-games/

I'm planning to play KSP for the rest of the day, and given that I have some concurrent missions, I have a lot of time between one check point and another, and I will use it to check all the games mentioned on that link.

At this moment, I just finished the "A" section (only Steam is being analyzed, of course). I found 3 entries not delisted by the Publisher/Developer:

• "A"
  • https://delistedgames.com/abstractism/
    • By (ab)using the user's machine to mining cryptocurrency.
    • It's a legal problem, Steam had to delist it or risk facing legal consequences by being accomplice
  • https://delistedgames.com/aery/
    • Apparently by abusing Steamworks or Steam ToS. But the game was relisted after, so it's not really known.
  • https://delistedgames.com/art-of-stealth/
    • By malpractice of steam resources (like creating numerous accounts and rigging reviews). This is plain fraud, it's also a legal issue nowadays.
      • Granted, it was not in 2017
• "B"
  • https://delistedgames.com/bolsomito/
    • By order of Brazil's Justice
• "C"
  • https://delistedgames.com/cold-dreams/
    • By malpractice of steam resources (like creating numerous accounts and rigging reviews). This is plain fraud, it's also a legal issue nowadays.
      • Granted, it was not in 2017
  • https://delistedgames.com/corporate-lifestyle-simulator/
    • By malpractice of steam resources
    • I will not nominate them here, but this would render some serious litigation at least on my country.
• "D"
  • https://delistedgames.com/dagestan-technology-titles/
    • A lot of the titles from this publisher were delisted due "abusing some Steamworks tools", but were most were relisted later.
    • Almost surely they were delisted by mistake.
  • https://delistedgames.com/death-gasp/
    • apparently delisted due "on abuse of Steamworks tools or Steam’s terms of use" like the previous entry, but it wasn't relisted back.
  • https://delistedgames.com/demons-age/
    • took down on a DMCA claim.
  • https://delistedgames.com/devotion/
    • The game’s removal was allegedly caused by a jab <removed due political issues>
  • https://delistedgames.com/digital-homicide-studios/
    • Literally expelled due requesting a subpoena against a hundred steam users.
    • “Valve has stopped doing business with Digital Homicide for being hostile to Steam customers”
    • I surely siding with VALVe on this one.
  • https://delistedgames.com/digital-mistake-titles/
    • All titles from this publisher were delisted due "abusing some Steamworks tools"
  • https://delistedgames.com/domina/
    • By malpractice of steam resources
    • I will not nominate them here, but this would render some serious litigation at least on my country.
  • https://delistedgames.com/drunken-ape-titles/
    • All titles from this publisher were delisted due "abusing some Steamworks tools"
• "M"
  • https://delistedgames.com/manic-mind-game-lab-titles/
    • "abusing Steam’s terms of use for several years and his titles were allegedly made from unlicensed or otherwise illicit assets, featured licensed music, or contained lewd content."
• "P"
  • https://delistedgames.com/paranautical-activity/
    • Developer tweeted a death threaten against Gabe Newel due something related to Steam
  • https://delistedgames.com/platformica/
    • By malpractice of steam resources (like creating numerous accounts and rigging reviews). This is plain fraud, it's also a legal issue nowadays.
      • Granted, it was not in 2017
• "R"
  • https://delistedgames.com/retro-tanks/
    • "abuse of Steamworks tools or Steam’s terms of use"
• "S"
  • https://delistedgames.com/sharf/
    • By malpractice of steam resources (like creating numerous accounts and rigging reviews). This is plain fraud, it's also a legal issue nowadays.
      • Granted, it was not in 2017
  • https://delistedgames.com/siberian-digital-titles/
    • "abuse of Steamworks tools"
  • https://delistedgames.com/silicon-rising/
    • "Apparently removed by Valve, the studio has reportedly been working to get the game relisted since it was taken down"
    • Steam Discussion for the game suggests they got a better deal with Oculus.
• "T"
  • https://delistedgames.com/tax-heaven-3000/
    • Removed preemptively by VALVe under fears of privacy invasion.
      • This one looks pretty arbitrary, indeed.
  • https://delistedgames.com/the-outbound-ghost/
    • Removed by VALVe “since there is an ongoing legal dispute over The Outbound Ghost, we’ve taken the store page off of Steam for the time being”.
  • https://delistedgames.com/the-wall/
    • Apparently removed due censorship. Unclear if removed by VALVe or by the publisher.
• "U"
  • https://delistedgames.com/unreal-gaming-titles/
    • "violation of the store’s rules”

Some titles apparently were removed by Steam due the publisher/developer closing accounts or ceasing to exist, but there's no confirmation. These titles were not listed above, I'm only listing the titles that were delisted by VALVe for sure.

That page lists 892 delisted games, where:

• WiP
• WiP
• WiP

I'm currently consolidating the data....

 

Edited December 30, 2024 by Lisias
DONE! Now consolidating the data...

[PDCWolf]

16 hours ago, Lisias said:

That said, a nerved was touched here:

I have a very harsh antipathy (the word we use in PT-BR is "Ojeriza") to anything remotely resembling a fallacy - even from myself (what, when happens, I guarantee you is involuntary).

Since I'm pretty sure that a good part of your counter-arguing was based on my initial statement "the key selling point" (emphasis on "the"), I'm on the faulty party on this specific subject.

Plain saying "apologies" is cheap. So the very least I could do is to scrutinize my arguments the very same way I do on yours.

Just so you know, I don't think apologies are needed from you, and I did skip over the "the vs a" part so it's on my for doubling down so I probably should say sorry for that too. Here's the link I was talking about, just be mindful that the list is centered around visual novels, anime games, rpgmaker stuff and obviously most of them include a form or another of adult content (however the list only has banner pictures which require a level of safety), and obviously none of the games listed can be obtained anymore, at least through Steam.

 

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

Just so you know, I don't think apologies are needed from you, and I did skip over the "the vs a" part so it's on my for doubling down so I probably should say sorry for that too. Here's the link I was talking about, just be mindful that the list is centered around visual novels, anime games, rpgmaker stuff and obviously most of them include a form or another of adult content (however the list only has banner pictures which require a level of safety), and obviously none of the games listed can be obtained anymore, at least through Steam.

I am aware of my own weaknesses, being hot-headed and less then ideally fluent in English two of them. I know how the choosing of words can, even if unconsciously, shape a conversation. Even if not being a root cause, I had contributed for the mess.

In a way or another, apologies were asked where (perceived) due, and forgiveness promptly granted where asked.

Lets build something constructive from this mess, there are interesting information about how VALVe delists a game - it's not about being right or wrong, it's about understanding the problem. There're more people involved on this mess now, this can escalate badly: kids are easily influenced and manipulated.

I will give a peek on the link you provided as soon as I finish the one I'm doing now.

Quote

House: God, if only you'd said that 2 minutes ago. Before I came up with my new scheme. Now I'm committed. Ha! Get it?

https://house.fandom.com/wiki/Broken

[Vanamonde]

More personal remarks removed. This is the second time. If it keeps up we'll have to close the thread. 

[cocoscacao]

3 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

More personal remarks removed

Remarks are inherently personal, no? I knew this forum is an incarnation of Orwell's 1984.

As Mel Gibson once yelled... FREEEEDOOOOOOM!!!

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I would like to note that efforts to get enough people tagging the game "abandoned" has succeeded. At least it shows abandoned when I go to the store page, I do not know if this is just showing "my tags" or not. Im old and steam is an evil contraption i do well to navigate most days.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

I would like to note that efforts to get enough people tagging the game "abandoned" has succeeded. At least it shows abandoned when I go to the store page, I do not know if this is just showing "my tags" or not. Im old and steam is an evil contraption i do well to navigate most days.

Not for me. Dunno if it's still echoing on the network, or if Steam is listing your tags together the "popular" ones only for you.

I have an issue with this. Now KSP¹ should be considered "abandoned" too, as it is in the exact same boat.

This is going to backfire on us in a way we are not going to like.

=== POST EDIT ===

I think a better (and probably more effective) solution is pledging to add the game to this list:

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41065531-Abandoned-EA-Games/

=== POST POST EDIT ===

In a way or another, it's an improvement that I failed to recognize: no kid will be induced to abuse the Steam's Report and risking being penalized.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Lisias
POST POST EDIT

[Scarecrow71]

26 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Now KSP¹ should be considered "abandoned" too, as it is in the exact same boat.

Except KSP isn't abandoned.  It was not in EA and it reached 1.0 years ago.  Not to mention that the developers/studio came out and said they were done working on it with the release of 1.12.5.

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, Lisias said:

=== POST EDIT ===

I think a better (and probably more effective) solution is pledging to add the game to this list:

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41065531-Abandoned-EA-Games/

=== POST POST EDIT ===

In a way or another, it's an improvement that I failed to recognize: no kid will be induced to abuse the Steam's Report and risking being penalized.

About that curated list...

On it, there *WAS* a game called OpenTDD. The game was update early 2024 December, but the game was still listed there, so until someone fixed the problem, a good, in active development game was tagged as "Abandoned" on this list until yesterday. And I know because I found this list yesterday, and found it listed there.

So a single dude developer got his work tagged as abandoned because they have a life and could not match the expectations of some people,  delivering updates and posting nonsense just to be there, pushing away people from a otherwise healthy (but slow) project.

THIS IS NOT how a Indie friendly store should behave.

This witch hunt will hurt innocent developers, and will backfire on the Indie Scene.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining...

[PDCWolf]

30 minutes ago, Lisias said:

About that curated list...

On it, there *WAS* a game called OpenTDD. The game was update early 2024 December, but the game was still listed there, so until someone fixed the problem, a good, in active development game was tagged as "Abandoned" on this list until yesterday. And I know because I found this list yesterday, and found it listed there.

So a single dude developer got his work tagged as abandoned because they have a life and could not match the expectations of some people,  delivering updates and posting nonsense just to be there, pushing away people from a otherwise healthy (but slow) project.

THIS IS NOT how a Indie friendly store should behave.

This witch hunt will hurt innocent developers, and will backfire on the Indie Scene.

You posted a link for a curator. Curators are literal Steam groups (you can create one with just yourself and review as a curator) that review games.

Edit: Upon checking further, you linked an abandoned curator with just 5 followers and its last review posted 2021... I don't think that guy will be causing much damage.

 

Edited December 31, 2024 by PDCWolf

[Lisias]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

You posted a link for a curator. Curators are literal Steam groups (you can create one with just yourself and review as a curator) that review games.

Now multiply it for that myriad of easily influenced and manipulated kids.

It's the reason I'm calling this a witch hunt: no one really cares about solving the problem, they just want to burn someone.

[PDCWolf]

Just now, Lisias said:

Now multiply it for that myriad of easily influenced and manipulated kids.

It's the reason I'm calling this a witch hunt: no one really cares about solving the problem, they just want to burn someone.

With 5 followers, that curator page is not going to be showing up anywhere.

[Lisias]

3 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

With 5 followers, that curator page is not going to be showing up anywhere.

Thanks God. Really, really thanks God.

Let's hope that all that "abandoned" similar effort ends the same - because the same mistakes will be made otherwise, but multiplied by Kraken knows how many witch hunters.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Lisias
Better phrasing.

[PDCWolf]

58 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Thanks God. Really, really thanks God.

Let's hope that all that "abandoned" similar effort ends the same - because the same mistakes will be made otherwise, but multiplied by Kraken knows how many witch hunters.

In which case, if you happen to catch it, you can report individual reviews or curators as a whole.

11 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Except KSP isn't abandoned.  It was not in EA and it reached 1.0 years ago.  Not to mention that the developers/studio came out and said they were done working on it with the release of 1.12.5.

I'll disagree.

Yes, we know what happened to the SQUAD devs, with T2 giving them the boot when KSP2 was set to release, though the last real bugfix (1.12.4) came in November 2022. However knowing this and that things ended "contractually" does not make the game any less abandoned: the game still requires fixing, the game was left broken, and there's no hope some glaring, easily triggerable bugs will ever be fixed specially around the DLCs. Much less would bugs centered around asymmetric core CPUs (released 2 years before end of support) be fixed and those can make the game unplayable (in fact, modern software has had to adapt, even to the point of BIOS defaults rewriting by manufacturers), and there's stopgaps to it, but games like KSP and many other games and software can present issues if the automated tools built for such cases don't properly detect the type of load.

Of course this debate would open an entirely different can of worms, as to how far should a studio support its product past release, specially for once-and-done products that won't use live service schemes. Sure, the last bugfix update was 3 years after releasing the DLC, but behind those they were kicking problems further and further back until T2 decided fun was over and thus some glaring things never got fixed.

As for the literal meaning of abandonware, end of support has already been reached, the only other consideration for the definition to apply is for it to no longer be purchasable, which now, almost 2 years since end of support, almost 6 since the last DLC, with the sequel "out", the contracts ended, the devs fired, the franchise and publishing studio sold... is anyone's guess how close or far that date is. Are those NASA and ESA licenses perpetual?

Edited December 31, 2024 by PDCWolf

[Lisias]

37 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

In which case, if you happen to catch it, you can report individual reviews or curators as a whole.

What I will not be able to do if they came in hundreds or thousands.

I trust the individual, individuals can be easily made accountable for their actions - it's the gullible collective the problem.

The only defense against an infuriated righteous mob is plain repression, what it's exactly what I expect Steam to do if this escalates too much.

If by any reason there's(re) someone(s) pulling strings on this, it's our best interest to hunt them down and make them accountable for the consequences.

[Superfluous J]

9 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

abandoned: the game still requires fixing, the game was left broken, and there's no hope some glaring, easily triggerable bugs will ever be fixed

You just described pretty much every game out there.

Is Skyrim on your list of 'abandoned' games?

Or are you only concerned about 'abandoned' EA games that left EA (nearly) a decade ago?

[PDCWolf]

15 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

You just described pretty much every game out there.

Is Skyrim on your list of 'abandoned' games?

Or are you only concerned about 'abandoned' EA games that left EA (nearly) a decade ago?

Guess that bit about "a different can of worms" got lost huh?

Skyrim SE's latest update was this year (still 2024 in my region, just saying).

Edit, because I believe I left out something important: The company in charge of Skyrim is still there, people are clearly available to work on it, and the franchise owner keeps the knowhow on board to go back to it if for some magical reason it was needed (like re-releasing it for the nth time), all of that is impossible with KSP1, probably KSP2 as well.

Edited 22 hours ago by PDCWolf